STRATEGY FOR INTERVENTION ISSUES REGARDING VISION, HEARING AND SPEECH DISABILITY.

Abstract

A person with a disability is unable to perform certain functions as well as most others. The disability may be physical, it may involve senses like seeing or hearing, it may involve the inability to think clearly, or it may involve mental health. Many people with a disability have full abilities in other areas. Disability is common about one in 20 preschoolers and about one in 10 school age children have a disability. There are many types of disability, including disabilities that children are born with, disabilities that develop after birth and disabilities that are caused by injury. Children with a disability may have special needs and require early intervention and as much support as possible. Common disabilities such as autism, Down syndrome and intellectual, physical and sensory (hearing, vision and speech) disabilities create challenges with thinking, behaviour and skill development.

Keyword: Impairment, Speech, Hearing, Visual, Intervention

Introduction

Children with disabilities are one of the most marginalized and excluded groups in society. Facing daily discrimination in the form of negative attitudes, lack of adequate policies and legislation, they are effectively barred from realizing their rights to healthcare, education, and even survival.

Children make progress at different rates and have different ways in which they learn best. When planning lessons, your child's teacher will take account of this by looking carefully at how they organize their lessons, classroom, books and materials.

The teacher will then choose suitable ways to help your child learn from a range of activities. If your child is making slower progress or having particular problems in one area, they may be given extra help or different lessons to help.

Concept of Disability

This results from a loss of physical functioning (e.g. Loss of sight, Hearing, or mobility) or from difficulty learning and social adjustment that significantly interfere with normal growth and development. A disability is an inability to do something, a diminished capacity to perform in specific way. It is a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movement, senses or activities. A disability may be generally defined as a condition  which may restrict a person mental, sensory or mobility function.

What is Visual Disability?

Vision impairment is a condition that’s prevents normal vision in one or both eyes. There are many problems with vision such as being near or short sighted (myopic), long sighted (hypermyopic), having normal sight in one eye only (monocular) or a turned eye (strabismus). Sometimes strabismus will be called a squint.

Many people have poor eye sight which can be corrected by wearing glasses or contact lenses. However, there are a number of serious vision problems that cannot be corrected by glasses or contact lenses.

Characteristics of visual disability child

The effect of visual problems on a child's development depends on the severity, type of loss, age at which the condition appears, and overall functioning level of the child. Many children who have multiple disabilities may also have visual impairments resulting in motor, cognitive, and/or social developmental delays.
There are some ways or things that a teacher, parents should not for identification. Signs to be observe do things that are the areas of focus to all regular school teachers in their efforts to identify children who have any one of the problems:

a.     Moving head side by side while reading or writing

b.     Difficulty in recognizing distance objects

c.      Holding books too close or too far from the eyes

d.     Exhibit difficulty in reading from the black board.

e.      Frequently asking other children when taking down notes from blackboard.

f.       Difficulty in doing fine work requiring perfect vision

g.     Inappropriate stumbling upon objects or bumping into others people.

Intervention Strategies

1.     The classroom teacher should encourage independence as often as possible to avoid the trap of “learned helplessness.”

2.     To encourage the student to move independently through the classroom, and organize your classroom accordingly.

3.     Materials, desks, and other objects in the classroom should be maintained in consistent locations.

4.     To be ensuring that cabinets are fully closed, chairs pushed in, and doors are not left half ajar will help with safety in navigating the classroom.

5.     Part of becoming independent for students with a visual impairment is learning when to advocate for assistance. Not all instructional tasks will be immediately possible for a student with a visual impairment, even with accommodations.

6.     The key is to design your instruction so that the student has the most opportunity to act independently.

7.     The student’s orientation and mobility specialist and teacher of students with visual impairments can assist with room arrangements and room familiarization.

Assistive Technology

§  Braille notetakers: lightweight electronic note-taking device that can be connected to a printer or a braille embosser to produce a printed or brailled copy.

§  Optical character reader: converts printed text into files on a computer that can be translated into audible speech or Braille with appropriate equipment and software.

§  Electronic braillewriter: produces braille, translates braille into text or synthetic speech.

§  Talking calculators: calculates with voice output.

Optical devices:

§  Closed Circuit Television (CCTV): enlarges an image to a larger size and projects it on a screen

§  Magnifiers: enlarges images

§  Telescopes: used to view distant objects

What is Hearing Disability?

U.S. Education Department defines hearing loss or disability as a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing with or without implication that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.

The individuals with disability education Act (IDEA, 2004) defines hearing loss as “hearing impairment whether permanent or not, that affects a child’s educational performance, this includes children who are known as residual hearing, which can be supported by the use of a hearing aids

Characteristics of Hearing Impairment

For a child, hearing and speech are essential tools of learning, playing and developing social skills. Children learn to communicate by imitating the sounds they hear. If they have a hearing loss that is undetected and untreated, they can miss much of the speech and language around them. This result is relayed speech/language development, social problems and academic difficulties.

·        Lack of response to spoke words

·        Yelling at people because they cannot hear their voices.

·        Stamping of foot for vibratory sensation.

·        Non response, when talked to, (call)

·        Difficult in Language expression\

·        Excessive concentration on vision

·        Watching the lips of speaker instead of his eyes.

·        Lessened laughter etc.

Methods of Intervention, Educating/Training Hearing Impairment

Teaching hearing impaired students requires the following:

i.                   Finger spelling: Means spelling out words and sentences in air with fingers or one hand or both hands.

ii.                 Gesture: this involves the use of facial and bodily movement to convey meanings to the hearing impaired.

iii.              Sign Language: The use of hand signals for communication.

iv.              Speech or Lip Reading: This is a technique of training the hearing impaired to keenly watch the speakers face and lips movements, facial expression to be able to say what the speaker is saying.

v.                 Hearing aids: Like audiometer, cochlear, in the ear, is an instrument t used by the hard of hearing to help them hear sound and speech.

vi.              Total Communication: is also called simultaneous method, it  involves the simultaneous use speech, finger spelling and sign language at the same time.

vii.            Auditory training: involves the teaching the hard of hearing to use his residual hearing.

viii.         Paper and Pencil/biro: they can read, write and compute just like normal hearing children (Wood, 1971)

What is Speech Disability?

Speech and language impairment is defined as a communication disorder that adversely affects the child's ability to talk, understand, read, and write. This disability category can be divided into two groups: speech impairments and language impairments.

A language disorder is an impairment that makes it hard for someone to find the right words and form clear sentences when speaking. It can also make it difficult to understand what another person says. A child may have difficulty understanding what others say, may struggle to put thoughts into words, or both.

Characteristics of Language and Speech Disorder

You may notice that your child vocabulary is very basic and his sentences are short, ungrammatical and incomplete. While his peers chats and tell jokes, your child may have trouble following the conversation and miss the jokes. He also may speak in two-word sentences and have trouble answering even simple questions. Here are some of the general examples:

i.       Difficulty in learning to read and write.

ii.     Inability to express ideas.

iii.  Unnecessary word omission or repetition.

iv.  Lack behind other student in speech and language skill development

v.     Improper use of words.

vi.  In appropriate grammatical pattern

vii.                        In ability to follow direction

Strategies Intervention

Identification, diagnosis and referral are some of the vital related service to be offered  to the individuals with language or speech disorder in order to prevent, rehabilitate, remediate or compensate these individuals through it depend on the type and severity of the disorder. Also the intervention services of the following are needed: parent, teachers, speech Language pathology, counselors and doctors.

The strategies interventions are as follows:

a.     Identification of children with speech or language disorder.

b.     Diagnosis and appraisal of specific speech or languages disorders.

c.      Referral for medical or other professional attention necessary for the rehabilitation of speech or language disorders.

d.     Provision of speech and languages service for rehabilitation or prevention or communicative disorders.

e.      Counseling and guidance of parent, children and teachers regarding speech and language disorders.

f.       Working closely with family to develop goals and techniques for effective therapy in class and at home etc.

Conclusion

Children with disabilities like hearing, visual and speech or language disability struggle with schoolwork regardless of their intellectual abilities. They require specialized learning strategies to meet their potential and avoid self-esteem problems and behavioral difficulties.

Parents of learning-challenged kids need to be persistent. This includes working with your child at home as well as teachers and schools to ensure they get all the help they need.

Although every special needs child is different and every family is unique, there are some common concerns that link parents. These include getting appropriate care and promoting acceptance in the extended family, school, and community. For some, planning for an uncertain future may be necessary. You will also find yourself adjusting routines and expectations, sometimes quite often.

Out of necessity, parents of children with special needs are often more flexible, compassionate, stubborn, and resilient than other parents. While it may not be something you had hoped for or expected, it is important for your child that you try to do your best. You can take comfort in the fact that you're not alone, so feel comfortable reaching out for support.

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